Publisher's Synopsis
The visionary chemist Sidney Gottlieb was the CIA's master magician and gentlehearted torturer - the agency's 'poisoner in chief.' As head of the MK-ULTRA mind control project, he directed brutal experiments at secret prisons on three continents. He made pills, powders, and potions that could kill or maim without a trace - including some intended for Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders. He paid prostitutes to lure clients to CIA-run bordellos, where they were secretly dosed with mind-altering drugs. His experiments spread LSD across the United States, making him a hidden godfather of the 1960s counterculture. Stephen Kinzer draws on new documentary research and original interviews to bring to life one of the most powerful unknown Americans of the twentieth century.